In Portland, a neighborhood watch group stirs debate over how to respond to the homeless

The Montavilla neighborhood is a place just about anybody might want to live in.

It
has an “almost suburban” feel, a city website notes, but it’s near
downtown Portland, with a population that’s more diverse than the city
as a whole. Homes range from pricey modern to modest bungalow;
businesses of every stripe do a bustling trade.

For the record

An
earlier version of this article attributed one comment in a YouTube
video to Benjamin Kerensa. He denies that it is his voice, and The Times
was unable to independently confirm who was speaking. A previous
version of the article also contained comments by homeless activist
Ibrahim Mubarak blaming Montavilla Initiative members for slashing tents
and throwing cold water on homeless people. Mubarak has since said that
he cannot be certain that members of the group were responsible for
those acts, and that he did not personally witness them. The article
also characterized Montavilla Initiative as a conservative organization,
which some members and observers dispute. It also misquoted Kerensa as
advocating that homeless people overdose on heroin “if they wish.” He
did not specifically refer to the homeless and actually said “if they
want.”

Last year Montavilla made Lonely Planet’s list of the 10 best U.S. neighborhoods.

It also broke apart over homelessness and rising crime.

Like
many American cities, Portland struggles with homelessness. What’s the
solution to getting people off the streets? What’s the right balance
between compassion and safety? Why does the world’s richest country have
so many people living in tents?

Last month,
Portland-area voters funded $653 million for affordable housing, on top
of $258 million in 2016. These are major investments for a city its
size. But relief may be years away.

In Montavilla, the debate over homelessness has taken on an edge in the last two years.

In
June 2017, the Montavilla Neighborhood Assn. passed a resolution asking
the city to “cease further sweeps of [homeless] camps,” which could be
“unconstitutional and human rights violations.”

Kevin Heard, who has been unemployed and homeless for five months,
talks with members of the Montavilla Initiative who stopped by his tent
while on patrol in their neighborhood in Portland, Ore. Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times

That
fall, a new board of directors was voted in that included Micah
Fletcher, a survivor of last year’s infamous stabbings by a white
supremacist on a light rail train. Around the same time, however, a new
nonprofit, Montavilla Initiative, formed as an alternative, focused on
public safety in the neighborhood. Battle lines hardened.

Montavilla
Initiative began doing its own foot patrols, which others had done
previously. Experts say similar groups have sprung up in other cities, including Long Beach and the west San Fernando Valley, as a conservative, tough-love response to the problem.

Interactions
between citizen patrol groups led by Montavilla Initiative and the
area’s homeless are now at the center of the neighborhood’s divide. On
the one hand, local officials and homeless advocates accuse Montavilla
Initiative of harassing vulnerable homeless people. On the other,
leaders of the nonprofit say homeless encampments foster crime, and
they’re just trying to make the neighborhood safer.

Multnomah
County official Kim Toevs said Montavilla Initiative members harassed
people who use the county’s largest needle exchange site, part of a
program that has operated for 22 years in the neighborhood. It offers
addiction counseling, exchanges millions of syringes annually, and gives
out naloxone, proven to save lives by halting overdoses.

The
county had to hire extra security after seven visits by the group,
officials said. Among other things, they said, Montavilla Initiative
members photographed clients of the needle exchange, some of whom feared
being exposed on social media.

“What we see
here, about [their] behavior, harassing our clients, and making them
feel stalked and scared, is hateful action,” Toevs said.

Montavilla Initiative denies using violence or intimidation against homeless people.

Of
15 homeless people interviewed for this article, many said they’re
aware of what they call the “neighborhood watchers.” One voiced support,
but most said they were afraid of them. None specifically accused
Montavilla Initiative patrols of bad behavior, however, and they
couldn’t differentiate between the new patrols conducted by the
nonprofit and those conducted by others.

“You
mean the ones that harass us?” said Amy Griffin, a homeless woman, when
asked about foot patrols. She said people blow car horns “at all hours”
and yell “Get out of here!” at her.

A man
named Jerry, who wouldn’t give his last name, said they were “rude and
disrespectful” and left him “coiled up inside.” Carlos Guzman said they
threatened and cursed at his friend.

But a
homeless woman who gave her name as Sky Smart expressed gratitude to
Montaville Initiative for giving her woolen socks and leftover clam
chowder. “Homeowners have a right to watch the neighborhood,” she said.

Police
statistics show property crime has risen in the neighborhood in the
last three years. In July, Portland Police Assn. President Daryl Turner
called Portland a “cesspool” and criticized elected officials for their
response to homelessness.

The uptick in crime has motivated Montavilla Initiative, some ofwhose members acknowledge they have no training in homeless outreach.

The
patrols “have been something we’ve had to learn along the way,” said
group member Jeff Church. “The intention is to treat people with
kindness. Sometimes that works, sometimes that doesn’t.”

The
group’s leaders, including Angela Todd, Benjamin Kerensa, Evelyn
Macpherson and Church, say the nonprofit has helped clean up Montavilla
Park, including picking up discarded needles and less dangerous trash,
and that its patrols increase safety. They say they scan for illegal
behavior, not homelessness.

They also say
they support local homeless people, and they’ve developed helpful
relationships with some, such as Paul Rodriguez, who lives in his
Corvette.

One
Multnomah County worker, Kelsey Knavel, who is a program specialist at
the needle exchange, said she had seen members of the group verbally
harass people, but has never witnessed violence. “They’re very savvy;
they haven’t violated any laws,” she said.

On
two evening patrols in late November, Rodriguez and others poked heads
out of tents and vehicles to chat with Montavilla Initiative members.
Todd hugged one woman and called another “sweetie.” Rodriguez, Kerensa
and Macpherson chatted about “bad apples” — troublemakers who ruin
things for more peaceable homeless people.

Some interactions ended less amicably.

During
one recent interaction with a trio of homeless people taking shelter in
a church alcove, the group left after voices were raised in anger; two
men seemed to have been upset by the surprise nighttime visit.

Neighbors
want to “have a presence,” Todd said, and shouldn’t tolerate “mayhem,”
including public urination, drug use, violent crime, people throwing
rocks at cars or siphoning gas. A campaign by the nonprofit is called
#enoughisenoughpdx. (PDX is Portland’s airport designation.)

But the language on a closed Facebook group called “Montavilla Public Safety” offers a window into the animosity unleashed in the neighborhood.

The
site declined to give two Times’ reporters access, but screenshots
shared by an activist reflect vitriol and violence. Homeless people are
called “zombies,” “terrorists,” “ferals,” “leeches” and “barbarians.”
Homelessness and criminality are conflated. Frustration and anger boil
over. Names and locations of specific people are included.

“It’s
clear, they will steal, rape, injure, murder us hard working citizens
without a care in the world,” one participant writes.

One
user writes he doesn’t patrol “because I think I would not be able to
abstain from cracking some skulls.” Kerensa, who founded the Facebook
group and is a former leader of Montavilla Initiative, said that
offensive posts in the group were quickly deleted and offenders were
removed from the group. One screenshot of an exchange on the site,
however, has Kerensa saying it would be good to “legalize heroin and let
them get the strongest stuff and dose themselves off if they want.
Natural selection.”

Kerensa, who said he was once homeless himself, said he didn’t recall using those words, but“if that’s what it says, then I’m gonna go ahead and own it.”

Users
write of taking justice in their own hands, or using drones with video
capability to observe local camps — something two homeless interviewees
said does occur. Kerensa said drones had not been used to harass
homeless people, although they might have flown over them.

Randy
Teig, who worked for years with neighborhood stakeholders including
Montavilla Initiative members as a police sergeant, said he had spoken
to Kerensa and other members of the group about their behavior.

“I
cautioned them about what they’re doing. I said, ‘You’re not police
officers; don’t go out there and start injecting yourselves into police
business.’”

Teig left thepolice in 2018, but said he knows the group well. He cautioned that online “groupthink,” no matter the politics, can be dangerous.

“There’s
polarization in the community right now, no question,” he said. “People
are frustrated, and frustrated people do stupid [stuff].”

Schmid is a special correspondent. Times staff writer Matt Pearce in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

Members of the Montavilla Initiative citizens group approac Nina Lopez,
right, and a friend while on patrol in their neighborhood in Portland,
Ore. Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times
A woman who identified herself as Sky Smart, who has been homeless for
11 years, wipes a tear as she talks about her life at a homeless camp in
Portland, Ore. Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times